“Ashamed?” she cried, “why should I be ashamed? I’m not a bit! How can I help my own nature? Most girls put love before everything else. Well, so do I; but it’s love for myself. I love myself better than any stupid young man, and I mean to make myself happy. I couldn’t be happy without money, therefore money I must have, and if I find a man who is ready and willing to give it to me, why on earth should I refuse?”
The friend looked at the fair, delicately cut face with a pang of envy.
“You are so lovely, Claudia; you’ll find him fast enough, and he’ll worship you, and think you a paragon of virtue. It is unfair! A plain-looking girl who would have loved him back, and been amiable and devoted, would have no chance, whereas you will carry all before you. It is unfair!”
“Oh, I’ll be quite sweet to him. I’ll have to be, to keep him in a good temper. I’ll be wickedly extravagant, you see, like all nouveaux riches, and I detest rows! Don’t you worry about the man, dear. He’ll be happy enough. So long as I get all I want, I’m quite easy to live with!”
“No one gets all one wants in life, Claudia,” said the friend tritely. “All the money in the world can’t protect you from the troubles which enter every life!”
“Perhaps not; but it can gild them! If I’m bound to have troubles, let me have them de luxe. A million or two can make anything picturesque. All the difference between sables and bombazine. Shouldn’t I look sweet, Meriel, as a widow, with a Marie Stuart bonnet and a cloak of priceless sables? He might die, you know! You never can tell!”
Then Meriel had arisen and swept scornfully from the room, and Claudia had laughed, and yawned, and gone to bed.
Several men proposed to Claudia during the next two years, only to be rejected with a finality which left no ground for appeal, and then, soon after the celebration of her twenty-fifth birthday, John Biggs appeared upon the scene. He was neither a Maharajah nor a German Jew, and he knew nothing whatever about soap-boiling. Probably in early years he had hardly been better acquainted with soap itself! He was an Australian by birth; a man of the people, who by a series of lucky chances had first discovered a gold reef, and then secured it for his own. A born fighter, he had experienced a delight in every step on the road to success, which was strangely lacking when the summit was reached. He was a multi-millionaire; he owned more money than he could spend. The battle had been fought and won, and henceforth life stretched before him barren of interest. He made his way to London, as millionaires have a habit of doing, was eagerly welcomed by a certain section of society, and in the course of a few weeks met Miss Berrington at a musical “At Home.”
“Who’s the Ogre?” asked Claudia of her companion as she watched the entrance of the big, lumbering man, who still carried his dress clothes with an air of discomfort. She shuddered daintily. “He looks like, ‘The better to eat you, my dear.’ Such teeth oughtn’t to be allowed! Has he any eyes? They are so buried in fat that one can’t see. It’s very inconsiderate of Lady Rollo to give us such shocks! If he comes over here, I shall scream!”
“That’s Biggs, the Australian millionaire, the third richest man in the world, so they say. He is an ugly beggar, and as glum as he’s ugly. Doesn’t appear to get much fun out of his pile! There’s no need to be introduced to him, Miss Berrington, if you’d rather not. Shall we go and hide in the conservatory?”